STAFFORD
Matthew Stafford against Mike Glennon. On paper, it looked like one of those lopsided heavyweight bouts where one guy had no business being in the ring with the other.
Glennon came into Sunday’s Bucs-Lions game having appeared in just seven NFL games. A rookie third-round pick from NC State, he had nowhere near the pedigree of Stafford, a former #1 overall selection in 2009.
But when it’s the Lions, there are no sure things. You think they will zig and then they zag. You think they’ll cruise to a playoff spot and then things get very murky. You think they’ll take care of business at home against a 2-8 team and then they make five turnovers in a gut-wrenching loss.
Stafford was far from sharp on Sunday, missing on throws he typically makes and connecting far too often with Buccaneer defensive backs. The second quarter pick-six to Leonard Johnson defined his afternoon. But it wasn’t just the misguided back-foot throw that caught my attention. It was the action that took place immediately following.
Johnson caught the ball around midfield. Replays showed Stafford lamenting the toss, his hands up in the air, disappointment splashed across his face. But then he realized -- the play is still going on. Keep in mind, there was less than a minute left in the half, so keeping Tampa Bay out of the end zone was critical.
Stafford casually made his way toward the side of the field where the return was taking place. He met Johnson around the 30, but lacking proper balance and having only just put his arms back down after his earlier show of despondence, he was unable to corral or even slow down the ball carrier.
Had Stafford reacted immediately, there would have been a good chance he could have prevented the score. And in a nip-and-tuck affair with the Tampa Bay offense struggling to move the ball for much of the afternoon, such a stop would have been crucial.
You can talk about some of the other missed throws and the three other interceptions. Some of those were his fault, others were merely unfortunate bounces of the pigskin. Stafford is not a perfect quarterback, and he will have days like this.
But you can always control attitude and effort. On that fateful game-turning play late in the second quarter, he lacked both, and the Lions paid the ultimate price.
The underdog won this fight by a technical knockout. The strange part is, the favorite inflicted all the damage -- he just did it to himself.
MORNHINWEG
The perennial football power Florida Gators suffered the most embarrassing loss in their program’s history on Saturday afternoon. Hosting Georgia Southern (a second division team) as massive favorites, the Gators got clipped 26-20 in a game with one of the most bizarre box scores you’ll ever find.
How’s this for strange? The visiting Eagles racked up 429 yards on the day, with every single one of them coming on the ground. That’s right. Not a single completed pass for Georgia Southern and they still figured out a way to defeat an SEC school on the road.
How is such a thing possible? Who could possibly have been quarterbacking the Gators during such an ignominious performance?
None other than Skyler Mornhinweg, spawn of Marty. It all starts to make a little more sense now, right?
Dad was the Lions’ head coach for 32 games and won five. He currently serves as offensive coordinator for the Jets, masterminding the second-worst scoring offense in football. Why shouldn’t his offspring try and one-up him?
To be fair, Little Mornhinweg is just a freshman, pressed into action the last couple of weeks due to injuries. But even so, with over 82,000 voicing their support and the other team literally incapable of completing a forward pass, you’d think Mornhinweg could have figured out a way to lead his troops to victory.
But if there’s anything we’ve come to learn about the Mornhinweg clan over the last decade, it’s that no game, no matter how lopsided the outcome is expected to be, should be assumed as a victory. Give those guys 60 minutes and they’ll find a way to put a check mark in the loss column.
Should be a pleasant Thanksgiving dinner at the Mornhinweg household!
GARDNER
Devin Gardner (UM photo)
Devin Gardner entered 2013 full of hope and excitement. He had finished the prior season with a number of productive outings, he was back playing his favorite position full-time, and Denard Robinson was no longer lurking over his shoulder in the backfield. There were even some rumblings in the college football world that Gardner could be a dark horse candidate for the Heisman Trophy.
Unfortunately, at some point, dreams and fantasies crash head-first into reality, and unless you actually live up to the expectations, the facade of greatness will come crumbling down. That’s what has happened to Gardner this autumn.
It started in the game at Connecticut, when Michigan coaches barely trusted him to even attempt a throw after a mistake-riddled first half. It continued weeks later against Michigan State when Gardner was pressured relentlessly, the Spartan defenders fully confident he’d be unable to defeat the blitz with quick and accurate decision-making. They were right; he was sacked approximately 37 times.
On Saturday at Iowa, Gardner completed just 13 passes and failed to eclipse the 100-
yard mark. Generally, 300 is the barometer for a quarterback; 100 is the number you pass sometime in the second quarter.
His rushing ability, once thought to be one of his main assets, has been nonexistent. In three of his last four contests, Gardner has failed to achieve a single run of 10 yards.
It all leads to the question; is Devin Gardner automatically Michigan’s starting quarterback for next season? If that is indeed the case, would it have anything to do with on-field performance, or merely be a nod to Gardner’s seniority and the inexperience of others?
Generally, you’d like for players inserted at the most important positions to have earned such posts with blossoming skills, emerging leadership, and career-defining triumphs. If Devin Gardner is back under center for the ’14 season opener, it will simply be due to the fact that he’s just been around Ann Arbor for a really long time.
But that can’t mean everything. After all, you never saw Shakey Jake lined up in the shotgun with a Rose Bowl berth on the line. The guy had some talent and definitely could strum a guitar, but was no Big Ten quarterback.
One has to wonder whether Gardner is either.
